WITH adventure and sports touring motorcycle still forming a large proportion of full-sized bike sales, Honda is rumoured to be working on two new models that could land in 2021.
The reports come from Japanese magazine Young Machine, which has long been thought to have information from within the big four Japanese factories fed directly to them. The latest whispers seem to point to Honda utilising the CB1000R as a base for two new and exciting models.
The first is a sport-touring bike of the old-school mould, using the engine and chassis from the naked CB1000R, and adding a Fireblade-inspired fairing and updated pillion perch featuring larger passenger grab handles. The bike, if it did hit the showrooms, would see Honda stepping back into the sports touring ring to take on bikes like the Kawasaki Nina 1000 SX, and Suzuki GSX-S1000F.
The second rumour surrounds the CBX concept we saw at the EICMA show last November. The concept on the Honda stand was clearly using the Honda CBR650R engine, although Young Machine is suggesting that this could be shunned in favour of the CB1000R engine, itself lifted from the previous generation Honda Fireblade.
This bike would be a much more ambitious project for Honda, as the CBX concept is a sport-touring machine from the modern mould of bikes. It’s long-legged aesthetic is more in line with bikes like the Yamaha Tracer 900 and BMW F900 XR, although with the potential for 180bhp at the rear wheel, it’d surely be the most powerful long-legged sports touring we’ve seen to date!
